


Reunion

by icarus_chained



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Forgiveness, Friendship/Love, Gen, Partnership, Promises, Protectiveness, Reunions, Self-Sacrifice, Soul Bond, Spoilers, Stubbornness, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 12:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6853825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jax had thought a lot about what he'd say to the Professor when he caught up with him again. In the end, though, he ended up not saying anything at all. At least not until after he'd hugged the man half to death, anyway. God<i>dammit</i>, Grey.</p>
<p>Fallout from 1x14/1x15. Missing scene after Jax and Martin are reunited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> **Martin:** When I tricked you onto this ship the first time, I was thinking only of myself. Now I'm thinking of you.  
>  **Jax:** You can't do this. If we're separated, you'll die.  
>  **Martin:** I've already lived my life, Jefferson. Now you have to live yours. Give my love to Clarissa. Tell her I'm sorry. She deserved a proper goodbye.  
>  **Jax:** Grey! Grey, no! _No!_
> 
> \--- Episode 1x14, "River of Time"

Jax had thought a lot about what he was going to say when he caught up to the Professor again, had run through at least a dozen options in his head, but in the end, when it came down to it, after Snart and after everything, he didn't end up saying anything at all. Not at first, not for the first few minutes after he'd gotten the man alone. He didn't say a damn thing.

He'd just pulled Stein into the closest empty space, ignoring the half-stammered protests the whole way, and wrapped the man up in a crushing, desperate hug. For minutes, hours, he hadn't a damned clue. He just picked the man up and held onto him until the shaking went away.

And the Professor, for his part, hadn't taken all that long to catch up and clutch him tight in turn.

"... Don't you ever do that to me again," Jax whispered, a few minutes or an hour later, whichever it happened to be. He held on. He didn't let the man go just yet, kept hold of the warm, trembling bundle of him, the sensation of Stein in his head and in his chest. "Okay? You're never doing that again. I don't give a _crap_ what's happenin' to me. Don't you ever try sending me away again."

Stein huffed a little bit, his hands curling behind Jax' shoulder blades. "It ... It had to be done, my boy. You would have died otherwise. As would we, without your later intervention. I couldn't ... watch that. I couldn't allow it. I'm so sorry."

He meant it. The necessity and the sorrow both. Jax could feel them, could feel the guilt and the grief and the desperate sorrow in the man's chest, and under it the hardness. The stubborn, willful defiance, the utter lack of regret. The love. That savage, desperate love, the thing Jax had felt with the man's hands cupped around his face, the thing he'd felt as that voice said _Now I'm thinking of you_. Grey would do anything for that love. Anything for Jax, anything to keep him alive. He'd turn the universe inside out if he had to. One little sedative hadn't even been a blip on his radar. Neither had the acceptance of his own death.

It was ... it was terrifying, was what it was. That love, the depth of that love. It was only getting deeper as they went. Jax could see that, had seen it in every word past!Stein had spoken, way back in 2016. Only five months ago. That was all, that was how long they'd been. That stiff, arrogant, distant man had only been five months ago, and willing to die for him even then. And now ... this man instead. Humbler, frailer, having been through so much more. Only the more willing to tear himself apart to keep Jax safe because of it, to break both their hearts and be damned to it so long as one of them, the _right_ one, lived at the end. It was terrifying. It was humbling beyond all measure.

And Jax couldn't let it ride. Not now, not ever. Like hell he was ever letting Grey get away with it, letting Grey die so Jax could live. No. Never again. 

"You stupid, stubborn-ass old man," he whispered, curling his hand at the nape of Stein's neck, holding tight and gentle and trying to push everything he was feeling in through the Professor's skin. "You know I'm gonna come back. Every time. You send me away, I'm gonna find a way back, no matter how far you send me. I'm never gonna just let you die. You have to know that by now. I'm part of you. You ain't ever gonna be able to save me unless you save us both."

Stein went very still, quiet and trembling in Jax' arms, his hands tangled at Jax' back. This close, this desperate, with the bond so close and so tight after so far stretched and distant, Jax could feel everything inside the man. He could feel the grief rise at what he'd said, could feel something anguished and bewildered crest and then tumble, break apart. He could feel something smaller and quieter come in behind it, something shy and hopeful and trembling, vaguely ashamed of itself. Stein chuckled in his arms. He dipped his head to hide it in Jax' shoulder.

"I do know that," he said softly. "Jefferson, I ... I know it. Since the gulag, everything that's happened since. I know precisely what it is you'd do for me, and I--" He cut off. Took a breath to steady himself. "Is it wrong to say I counted on it? Is it terrible that I was ... hoping, I suppose. You were coming. I knew that, I have the scars to prove that. Is it wrong that I was hoping that somehow you'd be in time?"

Jax breathed a little himself. Huffed out a breath, a laugh, something bright and spilling inside his chest. Something heartbroken, something delighted. He hugged the man close against his chest.

"Only if it's bad that I was too," he said, shaking his head against the Professor's hair. "I was so fucking scared I wasn't gonna make it, man. I was so scared you'd be dead before I got there. That's why you can't _do_ that. Okay? If you don't send me away, I don't gotta bust my ass trying to get back to save you in time. You just gotta ... you have to stay with me. You have to let me keep you safe."

"You would have died if you'd stayed," Grey reminded gently. Pulling back a little, just enough to look Jax in the eye. That thing in it again, that shaking, savage, _immovable_ thing. "I'm not going to let that happen. You can save me back, you can come for me as many times as I'm taken and I will always thank you for it, but when it comes down to it, Jefferson ... I will save you first. Always. My life comes second. I've lived it already. There will never be a time when I do not save you first. I'm afraid that's something you're going to have to live with, my boy."

And that was ... that sentence meant something, more than just the surface of it. 'You'll have to live with it'. The way Stein had after Ronnie. He knew exactly what he was saying with that, how much pain and how much grief he was asking Jax to bear. He knew, deeply and desperately and personally, what it was that he was asking Jax to do. 

He asked it anyway. With that same immutable stubbornness, that touch of a now-gentler arrogance. With that love. He asked Jax, and Jax ... couldn't refuse him. Couldn't quite say no.

He brought his hands up, reached up to cup them gently around Grey's face, the way Grey had with him. He shook his head, trying to find the bond, trying to pile everything he was feeling into it. All the grief and the relief and the anger, all the exasperation, all the other things. The shining things, the parts of him that were desperate and savage too.

"... You know I love you too, right?" he asked helplessly. "You know I'm not gonna let that happen, not unless there's absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. I'm gonna keep coming back. You do know that, right?"

The Professor smiled at him, reached up to grip his wrists and squeeze them gently. His end of the bond was quiet now. Shining, calm. "I know," he said softly. "I know, Jefferson. And, for what it is worth, I hope that you always succeed. Please believe me, my boy. I've no desire to leave you. I just ... I have so much less of one to see you taken from me."

Jax shook his head, pressed his lips into a sort of smile. "Yeah, Grey," he said. "I get that, yeah. I mentioned you were a stubborn-ass old man, right? I did say that?"

Stein shrugged, entirely placid once again. "You did," he agreed. "It's been said before. And there are, I think you'll agree, far worse things to be stubborn about."

Jax snorted gently. Shrugged to himself, reached out and reeled the man back in one more time. One more hug, just a little one. They'd been so far apart. Almost all the way, almost too far to join again. Jax didn't question the need to keep the man close after that, the itch under his skin that was only partly Firestorm. He let himself have another hug. Grey didn't protest either.

"Just so long as you know I'm gonna be stubborn back," he said, holding his partner tight. Holding a man who loved him and would die for him. "Every time, Grey. All the way to the end. You and me, we're in this thing for keeps."

"... Yes," the Professor said, a soft, pained wonder in his voice. "Yes, my boy, I think we are."

Even if they had to die for it. Even if they had to turn the universe inside out to keep it so. They were in this thing for keeps. They weren't either of them ever going to let the other go.

And being honest, as terrifying as it was, Jax wouldn't have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> These two _break my heart_. And then put it back together again. Every time. I love them so goddamned much. Martin cupping Jax' face for that half second, saying goodbye. Damn it.


End file.
